1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of joining sheet members together and to a sheet joined body, and particularly, to a method of joining sheet members together in which band-like sheet materials are joined together while being conveyed and to a sheet joined body produced by joining band-like sheet materials.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a case of feeding band-like sheet members continuously to a processing machine to process the sheet members, a measure is conventionally taken to join an end of a new sheet member with an end of a sheet member first processed, to feed the new sheet to the processing machine in succession to the preceding sheet member.
As this type of joining method, a method is conventionally known in which as shown in FIG. 6A, a preceding sheet member 101 and a new sheet member 102 are placed in such a condition that ends of these sheets are abutted against each other and an adhesive tape 103 is applied to upper and lower surfaces of both sheet members so as to cover the abutted part, thereby joining both sheet members together.
However, when sheet members are joined together by using such a method, the adhesive tape 103 is attached to both front and back surfaces of the sheet members 101 and 102. Therefore, it is necessary to temporarily stop the conveyance, giving rise to a problem that it is necessary to suspend continuous processing of the sheet members.
Moreover, in order to maintain continuous processing without stopping the conveyance of a sheet member, it is necessary to introduce an accumulator that suspends only the joint part, posing a problem that an introduction of such an accumulator needs an extensive installation space and large installation costs.
On the other hand, as other methods used to join sheet members together, a method is proposed in which as shown in FIG. 6B, the new sheet member 102 is overlapped on the preceding sheet member 101 to join both sheet members together through the adhesive tape 103 disposed in advance at the front end part of the new sheet member 102 and then, the rear side of the preceding sheet member 101 is cut.
Since this method ensures that the new sheet member can be joined while the preceding sheet member is conveyed, it has an advantage that the processing of the sheet member can be continued without using the accumulator as mentioned above.